Brooke

I found out yesterday that a relative of mine was murdered. I didn't actually know him, so I didn't have a big reaction until I got a few of the details.

Basically, it was a seventy-year-old man who was killed for his guns, money, and some other property. The killers are in custody. They were stopped driving his car and they confessed. Apparently, some of his other property was found in their apartment.

To me, this is all fairly bad. It gets worse, though.

State police said they developed information that Parsons and Amburgey allegedly bound and gagged Slusher and threw him off a bridge into the Cumberland River in the Page community — a drop of about 50 feet.

Volunteers searched the swollen river for Slusher's body without success before nightfall on Wednesday.

If anyone ever deserved to die for a crime, these people do. And I hope that they spend an eternity paying for it. And I'm normally fairly respectful of differing opinions, but I don't want to hear anti-capital punishment arguments right now.

Thanks. Like I said, I'd never actually met him and he was a distant relative on my dad's side, but still... It just hit close to home, figuratively and literally.

I have no idea how they'll be charged or if they'll even seek a death penalty, but for me, this is one of those cases that just screams for it. As I pointed out to someone else, if they were going to kill him and rob him, it's bad but there are less heinous ways of killing someone. (Not that I'm arguing for killing anyone, but....) If someone is bound and determined kill someone, there needs to at least be some penalty that keeps them from doing it in such a depraved manner.

That's so horrible. I mean...personally, the only reason I was anti-capital punishment is because I think the should spend a lifetime suffering because of what they do to people and their families/friends, but honestly, they get treated so well in prisons anymore that I go both ways. I want people actually suffering for what they did, because there's never a good reason, I can never think of one that would justify killing another like this.

I just...I'm really sorry to hear that. I can't even begin to know what that feels like, and even if it wasn't a relative you were close to, it's still family and they still should never have had something like this happen.

I want to believe the theories of punishment that involve people being rehabilitated and that a fair, reasonable punishment serves to prevent crimes, but someone who would do that... how can you expect them to ever be part of society again?

And that's how I feel about capital punishment, too. I really think that a life sentence with no hope of parole is a much worse punishment than a death sentence.

I am the same way, you want to believe the best in someone, but life and instinct will always tell you otherwise. And even if they did, even if it was a moment of insanity...what's to stop them from re-lapsing by some unforseen event? You can't promise me safety if you're willing to turn them loose on society just because they 'behaved' while they were in a tightly controlled environment. Not to mention, a lot of desperate people nowadays do robberies to ensure they get time, because they know they have a safehouse for the duration of their sentence: they're out on the street or in debt without it.

I think, if we could get prisons back to the way they should be, where there is no form of enjoyment like TV, rec time, classes, and/or special meals and make them regret what they did, then it shouldn't be a problem. You don't reward people for good behavior when they're there for something terrible. But people seem to think it's safer this way versus having them bitter towards society when they serve their time.